This talk introduces the correspondence of the contemporary American poets Bernadette Mayer and Clark Coolidge. Mayer and Coolidge’s voluminous and remarkable epistolary exchange began in 1964, at the start of each’s poetic career, and continued until 1987. During those years they collaborated on one poetic project, The Cave (written in the early ’70s, published in 2008). But their letters do more than simply illuminate their individual and collaborative poetic work: they were the primary mode of communication between two poets who, despite active participation in various artistic scenes, felt themselves to be outsiders. You could call the correspondence a poetic project in and of itself. Full of gossip, thoughts on poetic practice, and readings of each other’s work, the correspondence demonstrates the deep engagement of friendship and ideal readership. This talk will provide an overview of the correspondence and reflect upon the process of co-editing a volume of it; I will also address the act of transcription as a concept and editorial tool.

主讲人: Stephanie Anderson

Author of four books of poetry, most recently the forthcoming If You Love Error So Love Zero, as well as several chapbooks. Her interviews and articles have appeared in Chicago Review, The Conversant, Mimeo Mimeo, and nonsite.org. She has been the recipient of a Harry Ransom Center Research Fellowship, a Mellon Foundation B-Side Modernism/Raymond Danowski Poetry Library Fellowship, an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Dissertation-Year Fellowship, and a Stuart Tave Teaching Fellowship. She received her MFA at Columbia University and her PhD at the University of Chicago. She co-edits the micropress Projective Industries and lives in Beijing, where she is a member of the Tsinghua-Michigan Society of Fellows in the Institute for World Cultures and Literatures at Tsinghua University.

主持人: 陈湘静

时间: 2018年5月10日周四 12:30-13:30

地点: 文南楼204会议室